Illjwamh

It does not. The NP count is separate. I do need to update it with July's count, though. And August! Holy crap, things really got away from me. On that note... Woo! Lots of things for me to do today. Also, Ashley! Yay! Wed. Sept. 6, 2017 Tedd: 712 Sarah: 629 Elliot: 884 Ashley: 123 Sarah's Chubby Fan: 5 (1st appearance since 2014) FULL COUNT:

Wed. Aug. 23, 2017 Big Monster Aberration: 2 Small Eyes Aberration: 1st appearance Whoever is narrating (probably Voltaire, but who can say): ??? Fri. Aug. 25, 2017 Small Eyes: 2 Big Monster: 3 Wed. Aug. 30. 2017 Noah: 69 (2017 debut) Fri. Sept. 1, 2017 Mr. Verres: 131 Tedd: 711 Jeremy: 57 (1st appearance since 2015) Mon. Sept. 4, 2017 Diane: 136 Susan: 467 Li'l Nase: 22 *All Susan's fairies will now be counted under the Li'l Nase category FULL COUNT:

Oh my god. I'm so exhausted. My work schedule this past month has been insane; you have no idea. Anyway, I have leisure time again. Let's git 'r done. Mon. Jul. 24, 2017 Tedd: 703 Pandora: 100 (12th) Wed. Jul. 26, 2017 Pandora: 101 Tedd: 704 Fri. Jul. 28, 2017 Pandora: 102 Tedd: 705 Mon. Jul. 31, 2017 Tedd: 706 Pandora: 103 Grace: 799 Mr. Verres: 130 Wed. Aug. 2, 2017 Tedd: 707 Fri. Aug. 4, 2017 Pandora: 104 Tedd: 708 Mon. Aug. 7, 2017 Pandora: 105 Tedd: 709 Fri. Aug. 11, 2017 Tedd: 710 Pandora: 106 Mon. Aug. 14, 2017 Pandora: 107 Wed. Aug. 16, 2017 Pandora: 108 Fri. Aug. 18, 2017 Pandora: 109 Mon. Aug. 21, 2017 Comically Evil Guy: 1st (only) appearance* ???: ??? *I know I said I wasn't going to list characters who were obviously one-offs, but come on. How could I not? FULL COUNT:

While doing my NP count, I came across this strip, which reminded me that Rhoda has awakened - a fact that until just now I had forgotten. That got me to thinking - just how many awakened characters are there now? And how many dreamers? That we know of, anyway? By my best reckoning, discounting people whose jobs involve magic (like Verres, Cranium, etc. - in other words, ordinary civilians) the current tally is as follows: Awakened: Nanase Elliot Ellen Susan Justin Rhoda Noah Dreaming: Catalina Luke (and whomever his friends are) Good Tom Liz Dex Sarah Possibly Carol? Kitty Felix (/Felicity?) Confirmed Potential Diane Ashley Mrs. Kitsune Akiko I feel like I'm for sure forgetting some.

Back to bu'iness. Mon. Jul. 17, 2017 Tedd: 700 (3rd) Pandora: 97 *Noriko is not in any way clearly visible/discernible, so even though we know that's her, it doesn't count as an appearance. Wed. Jul. 19, 2017 Pandora: 98 Tedd: 701 Fri. Jul. 21, 2017 Pandora: 99 Tedd: 702 FULL COUNT:

I'm now predicting that by the end of this storyline, once all this business has been taken care of, Pandora will finally reset. Just a crazy hunch I have.

Wow. Panel 5 is the first time I remember seeing Pandora even imply that she knows it's time for her to restart.

Hence "interpretation" and "question mark". Mrs. Kitsune isn't implied to be potentially a wizard; it's stated flat-out as a fact.

I was thinking of Greg for the Dreaming list but decided we don't know if that's what he's doing, but I somehow forgot him when it came to the potentials list. Yeah, he should definitely be on that one.

That...that was the joke...

This strip seems pretty definitive on the subject of Liz. The next strip is clearly some time later when she notices Catalina and Rhoda. Carol is a question mark because of certain interpretations of these two strips. Akiko's potential is confirmed as far as I'm concerned based on panel 7 of today's strip, especially when one considers what we already know about Nanase.

Indeed. Thus my decision not to count him.

I've literally heard it both that way and the other way around. The truth is that no one knows, so they pretend they know, because there just has to be a difference, doesn't there? After all, why would we have two nearly-identical words that mean the exact same thing if not for regional dialectical variation? Because English is weird, that's why.

Holy crap, there's a grammar thread and I never knew? I really should pop into the off-topic forum more often. Forgive me if I travel back in time a bit. What's really fun about that is that "wend" still exists, and its past tense form has become the regularized "wended". I wanted to quote the Weird Al Word Crimes video too, but it's on a different page and the quoting function on this forum doesn't lend itself well to copy and paste. In any case, that song has been my personal anthem since it came out. One last thing. Fun fact: there is no syntactic or semantic difference between "toward" and "towards". It's simply a matter of personal preference.

That's been pretty much my take, as well. It also explains why Raven feels so guilty about it.

And now, the last post until at least Monday. I plan on updating the NP count on a monthly basis, so I've stopped at the end of June here. FIRST HALF OF 2017 NP COUNT: Rhoda: 23 Grace: 22 Ellen: 19 Kitty: 16 Catalina: 15 Susan: 10 Drake: 10 Nanase: 8 Duck: 8 Justin: 7 Sarah: 6 Pandora: 6 Writer's Block: 6 Bill: 5 Octopus Robot Butler: 5 Charlotte: 5 Diane: 4 Felix: 4 Elliot: 2 Greg: 2 Rich: 2 Larry: 2 Tom: 2 George: 1 Tensaided: 1 Ashley: 1 Cheerleadra: 1 POINT OF INTEREST: Rhoda becomes the first non-main character to top either chart (NP or Main), unless you count Dan himself for NP 2005, and I'm choosing not to. Just for this time, on the full count below, I'll be using the colors I use for the Main count on the major characters, so you can see how they stack up here. NP TOTAL COUNT AS OF JUNE 30, 2017:

Wow. Uh, you're welcome? Dang. And thanks. Seriously. Statistics and stuff is really fun for me, and I'm glad so many others seem to be enjoying it as well. And of course it's always great to feel appreciated. Thanks, Old Hack. Made my day just now. Also, "Yea!" (for HarJit)

And now for serious things. Fri. Jul. 14, 2017 Tedd: 699* Pandora: 96 *This is clearly an indication that Monday's strip will cut away to a different scene and we won't see Tedd again for months. FULL COUNT:

Okay, I'll do 2016's NP count first, and then today's main count. It'll be two separate posts, since spoiler tags tend to mess things up and embed things where they're not supposed to be embedded. Annoying. 2016 NP: Grace: 66 Rhoda: 50 Catalina: 47 Pandora: 31 Sarah: 29 Ellen: 22 Writer's Block: 7 Tedd: 6 Susan: 5 Dan: 5 Ashley: 5 Liz: 5 Amanda: 4 Diane: 4 Lucy: 4 Rich: 3 Tensaided: 3 Larry: 3 Elliot: 2 Demonic Duck: 2 Akiko: 2 Minion: 1 Justin: 1 George: 1 Carol: 1 Andrea: 1 Good Tom: 1 Mr. Kitsune: 1 NP TOTAL COUNT:

One more for tonight. This one is interesting because it contains the entire Question Mark storyline, which - you may recall - was also included in the main count, albeit differently due to the way the main archive combined several NP strips per page. NP 2015: Sarah: 84 Grace: 62 Ellen: 37 Susan: 31 Tedd: 19 Pandora: 17 Dan: 12 Carol: 11 Minion: 9 Nanase: 7 Elliot: 6 Writer's Block: 5 Amanda: 4 Lisa: 4 Susan's Fairy: 4 Catalina: 3 Tensaided: 3 Verres: 3 Justin: 2 Greg: 2 Diane: 2 Rhoda: 2 Rich: 2 Lavender: 2 Melissa: 1 Noah: 1 George: 1 Richard: 1 Mr. Brown: 1 Ashley: 1 Dex: 1 Writer's Sphere: 1 Larry: 1 Cheerleadra: 1 Ronin: 1 NP TOTAL COUNT:

Wow. An NP year with actually a decent number of appearances. Who knew? 2014: Nanase: 61 Susan: 60 Tedd: 46 Susan's Fairy: 12 Fox: 4 Grace: 3 Gods of Curling: 1 NP TOTAL COUNT:

Well, let's not forget the real reason we're here. Wed. Jul 12, 2017 Pandora: 95 Tedd: 698 FULL COUNT:

Might as well do 2009 while I'm here, as there's almost nothing to it. Tedd: 10 Grace: 10 Sarah: 3 Susan: 3 Elliot: 2 Nanase: 2 Ellen: 2 Raven: 2 Jeremy: 1 Dan: 1 Minion: 1 Justin: 1 Amanda: 1 Lisa: 1 Brownie: 1 TOTAL NP COUNT:

I should have time for 2008 before I have to leave for work. Tedd: 10 Elliot: 5 Sarah: 2 Grace: 2 Shop Monster: 2 Amanda: 2 Lisa: 2 Susan: 1 Diane: 1 Lucy: 1 Rhoda: 1 Raven: 1 Tony: 1 Sandi: 1 NP TOTAL COUNT:

Up next is 2006. There is no 2007, so I'll be taking a break. Susan: 16 Sarah: 13 Melonpool: 8 Troutman: 5 Sporkman: 3 Susan's Logic: 1 Susan's Curiosity: 1 NP TOTAL COUNT: